Have you signed Neo's petition yet?

If not, the Singaporeans against gutter politics petition is here. Watching the numbers go up every time I refreshed the page was kind of therapeutic.

I remember LKY ruminating on 'what is the educated Singaporean?' many years ago. I cannot find the newspaper cutting, sorry.

But he alluded to someone who reads books (against magazines or work literature) and has 'stuff' like paintings (I suppose, as against photographs) on the wall.

'Educated' is sort of equated with 'Cultured', with a capital 'C', or as some would say, 'arty-farty'.

I think any 'educated' person would be a 'gracious' person as well.

The meaning of 'grace', biblically-speaking, means 'something given where none is deserved'. That is, sinners being forgiven by God because of Jesus dying on the cross is 'grace'.

Being 'gracious', to that extent, is being Christ-like. He taught us, 'Do to others as you would have them do to you.' (Luke 6:31)

This is significant as most religions and philosophies teach a more negative version of “Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you.” This is also known as 'the golden rule'.

There was also a time when Singaporeans were not so well-educated. Ad hominem remarks could be accepted as the speaker claims the moral high ground ... because we, as philistines, did not know any better.

With education we now understand that such fallacious arguments and attacks 'to the person' (hence hominem) are a sign of weakness. A weakness writ large as previously ad hominem arguments were followed by ad baculum action, an appeal to force (physical, fiscal, legislative, etc).

Thanks to LKY whose government gave me such a good education, I now consider it most undignified to have to resort to ad hominem arguments when I am losing ground.

Thanks to LKY showing me the way I will always choose the path of graciousness which, note, is not the same as gracefulness.

If your parents had the money to give you piano and ballet lessons and other cultural pursuits with a capital 'C', you might be able to play and dance with sublime grace-fu-lness gracefulness. My parents did not.

The good news is: We can all model graciousness!

You don't need to rejoice with me by singing, 'Hallelujah! Jesus is alive!'

We can all simply 'do to others as you would others do to you'. Simples!

O! And what about the courtesy campaign? ???